Two decades later, the memorable — albeit largely fictionalized — film about Jamaica’s first Olympic bobsled team still holds up.

Of course Cool Runnings, the 1993 movie based loosely on Jamaica’s first competitive bobsled team, is mostly fictional.

But it still stands up over two decades later, with all the hallmarks of sports movies from that era — earnest, formulaic, a bit naïve but still charming if you don’t think too hard about it. It follows a familiar trajectory: scrappy underdogs go for gold against all odds but win hearts and minds in the process, teaching valuable life lessons about teamwork and commitment. Think A League of Their Own (1992), The Mighty Ducks (1992) and Rudy (1993).

In Cool Runnings, a series of accidents leads to the creation of Jamaica’s first Winter Olympics team, made up of wannabe track stars and a pushcart driver who likes to wear purple overalls with his Rasta cap. They squeak into the 1988 Calgary Olympics, capturing the world’s attention before they crash and burn in their borrowed sled.

Cool Runnings does succumb to a few clichés: the colourful Rastaman caricature, the chain-smoking villain, the impassioned speech in the second act when things look bleak. But surprisingly, the movie addresses a few issues head-on, like the subtle racism encountered by the team during the Olympic qualifiers — even if those issues were mostly made up.

“I didn’t realize four black guys on a bobsled could make you blush,” John Candy’s character, former bookie and disgraced coach Irv Blitzer, says to a vaguely nefarious sporting official who wants the Jamaicans disqualified in one of several obstacles to be overcome.

“If we look Jamaican, walk Jamaican, talk Jamaican and is Jamaican, we sure as hell better bobsled Jamaican,” says the fictional Sanka Coffie, who fears his teammates are trying too hard to be like teams that might actually win, like the Swiss or evil East Germans. (Later, members of the real-life team said they were greeted warmly by the international community.)

And what would a sports movie be without a great action montage, set to an uplifting string orchestra?

The team finally takes their sport seriously after an embarrassing defeat. Coach Blitzer gets a stopwatch. A shiny new bobsled appears, and the team gets down to business in their toques and puffy coats in Caribbean colours so as not to lose the national pride that bubbles up during every Olympics.

It’s clear John Candy was nearing his final performance as the bloated, weary coach. As the token white dude of the plucky team, he plays the straight man well.

The other actors — Doug E. Doug, who plays Sanka; Leon, who plays Derice Bannock; Rawle D. Lewis, who plays Junior Bevil; and Malik Yoba, who plays the inexplicably named Yul Brenner — do their best with a Disney-produced script. Almost all laughs in the comedy are the slapstick variety: island guys aren’t used to the ice! Island guys fall down!

Dudley “Tal” Stokes, the real-life Derice, told a recent Reddit AMA that some parts of the story are true: the uncertainty of funding, athletes adjusting to the cold weather, the struggle for acceptance and the death-defying crash that ended their gold-medal dreams.

The team was recruited from the Jamaican army, not the racetrack, according to Stokes, although the initial interest did arise from pushcart racing as it appears in the film.

The catchy mantra “Feel the rhythm, feel the rhyme, come on up, it’s bobsled time” — used by the team to reaffirm their Jamaican pride — is also made up, according to Stokes.

“It’s a feature Disney film, not much in it actually happened in real life, there were some things that were inspirational for the film. It is different than a documentary. It’s really served Jamaica bobsled very well,” Stokes said.

But the team itself had a lasting impact on Jamaican sport culture.

“Right now Jamaica is about Bob Marley, then bobsled and now it is (top sprinter Usain) Bolt. The team didn’t put Jamaica on the map, but it kept it top of mind. Jamaicans are aware of this and it is a source of pride for me while travelling or when at home,” Stokes said.

Both stories, the real and the fictional, have inspired other warm-weather countries to send teams to the Winter Games.

And, in this year’s sequel, Jamaican bobsled darlings Winston Watts and Marvin Dixon told reporters they’d one day like to see Bolt join their team since he’s so fast.

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